


Soothe Me To Sleep

by herwhiteknight



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Present Tense, Songfic, actually it's sorta not sorta a song fic, if you squint hard enough it's romantic, sarah sings 'safe and sound', sarah's the one singing, so there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herwhiteknight/pseuds/herwhiteknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With no hope of a cure in sight, Cosima has run out of options. So with Sarah by her side, Cosima asks for one last favor. A song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soothe Me To Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Yes... this is a song fic. But since I actually haven't really read one of those in a long while, I'm not sure if this even follows the format of what song fics normally look like. So give mine a chance please! :) Plus, come on, it's Sarah singing “Safe and Sound”. Just, go on, just try hearing that song in Sarah's sexy grunge Brit accent. I dare you.

“Sarah,” Cosima rasps late one night.

“Shh, sh,” she murmurs right back, rolling over in their shared bed in Felix's loft that they had overtaken once Cosima had gotten worse.

“I need... Sarah,” she mumbles, almost in her sleep but her eyes are wide open and more alert than they have ever been in the past few weeks.

“You need sleep, Cos, that's what you need,” Sarah replies gently, propping herself up so that she can better see Cosima's pale and withdrawn face. “I'm right beside you, alright? So you don't need to worry.”

“No, Sarah,” she insists fiercely, her words accompanied by a rough hack, blood flecks spattering against her lips. “This... it's important.”

“Okay, alright... it's important,” she soothes gently, using her thumb to clean the corners of Cosima's mouth. “Tell me, but then go right back to sleep, yeah? You need to save your strength.”

She shakes her head, slowly, once right and left, the motion smooth, like oiled hinges. “No strength left. Not..,” Cosima coughs once more, barely any sound to it this time, more just like a jerk of her shoulders. “Anymore.”

“Cos, no, stop that, don't say that,” Sarah commands roughly, but when she reaches out to the other woman's face, her touch is gentle, her fingers a soft caress against Cosima's cheek. “You'll be fine, yeah? You'll be alright.”

“That's nice...,” Cosima sighs, her eyes fluttering shut, a smile bringing her lips up into a peaceful expression. But whether she's referring to Sarah's touch or to her words, Sarah can't be sure. So she just keeps her hand gently there on her face, cupping her cheek. Then, without opening her eyes, Cosima speaks quietly once more, “Sing for me, please?”

“Cos, I don't-” Sarah protests weakly, but the refusal is shallow. Over the past few weeks, Sarah has denied Cosima nothing. A simple song is nothing compared to the hoops she has previously jumped through in the name of Cosima's comfort and health.

So when Cosima begs her in the next moment, the words aren't even needed. Are precious air that is wasted.“Please Sarah... something.. something calming. Something to relax me. That's what I want.”

Sarah nods first, then notes Cosima's still closed eyes. “Sure,” she says, taking her hand and squeezing it for extra reassurance, “Just... lemme think, alright?”

“Take... your time,” she breathes, her words slow, deliberately chosen. “I know.. you have to search through all that... rock music.”

“That's right,” Sarah replies absently as a song comes to mind, hitting her solidly in the chest at its lyrics, and how truly fitting they are in this exact moment. She hasn't even started singing and already she knows that she's going to cry. “Just remember with me, yeah?”

“What.. am I remembering? Will we even.. remember.. the same thing?” Cosima asks, still inquisitive even to her last moments.

“We will,” Sarah squeezes her hand for assurance once more, feeling tears burn at the back of her eyes, a lump forming in her throat that makes her question her ability to even make sounds, much less sing. “Just trust me.” Cosima makes a small hum of agreement and Sarah sucks in a shaky breath. Then she begins to sing.

Her voice is hesitant at first, still scratchy from sleep but the words, though rough and wobbly, are instantly recognizable. And Cosima has never heard anything more beautiful, she's sure of it. “I remember tears streamin' down your face when I said I'll never let you go,” she begins, the song transforming into something else entirely as the words pour out of her mouth in her rough accent. And as she's singing, Cosima remembers.

_“Sarah, I'm going to die, I'm... going to die, there's nothing... I can do and I'm going-”_

_“I've got you Cos, I've got you,” she whispered back, pulling her closer as Cosima's tears stain her shoulder. “I'm not going to let you go. Ever. I promise.”_

Cosima's eyes fly open as she remembers, her gaze instantly finding Sarah's, wondering, _did she remember the same as me?_ She's nodding as well, and continues the song, “When all those shadows almost killed your light.” Her voice is broken, _she's in pain, this is hurting her._ But neither of them can stop. And so Cosima's hit with another memory.

_It had been weeks since Cosima had found anything towards creating a cure, weeks since she had had any amount of sleep that had been more than four hours in a row. Dark circles were showing, and Cosima had long since stopped caring about covering them up._

_“You need sleep, Cos,” Sarah said as she approached her gently, laying a hand on her thigh._

_“I can't, Sarah!” Cosima snapped, her gaze locking onto the other woman. And Sarah saw darkness and hopelessness and_ fear  _within her eyes. “I just.. can't, Sarah,” she whispered. And the bright spark of excitement and curiosity that Sarah had come to readily associate with Cosima was gone._

“I remember you said don't leave me here alone,” she's trying so hard now, not to fall apart in front of Cosima's steady gaze that's enraptured by her face. She can't let Cosima see her cry, not now. And not because of her image; she had let her tough exterior fall the moment they had realized that it was only a matter of time before this moment finally came. No, she can't let Cosima see her cry because she refuses to ruin the last peaceful moments Cosima has with bloody  _tears._ To destroy the relaxed expression of contentment on Cosima's face as she rests her head comfortably in Sarah's lap is the last thing she wants to do. 

“You wanted to run, didn't you?” Cosima chuckles weakly, sound barely wheezing past her lips.

Sarah nods, her head dropping, the melody cut off for the moment as she fights the tears and the memories so that she can keep herself together long enough to continue on.

_“Sarah...,” Cosima began weakly as Sarah paced back and forth, running her hand through her hair, fighting the urge to scream in frustration or panic or fear. Or maybe all three. She was holding herself together, barely, but only for Cosima's sake._

_As it was, she couldn't keep herself from muttering frantically, “We need to get help, something, we need to get someone, anyone, there has to be-”_

_“Sarah!”_

_“What?!” she snapped back, “Cosima, we need to do something, I need to go, get someone, Delphine, anyone to help right now! I need to go.” Saying that, she grabbed her jacket and slung it over her shoulders as she headed for the door._

_“Sarah... Sarah, please,” Cosima begged as loud as her raw throat would allow, but even that small strenuous act forced a rough cough up her throat. “Please... don't leave me. I.. I don't want to be alone. Stay with me. Please.”_

_And Sarah found that she just couldn't run. She'd done too much of that life before and Cosima needed her here. Cosima needed her now. So she turned. And she stayed. For Cosima._

Swallowing against the lump in her throat,  _she's sure she wont be able to keep singing now,_ Sarah takes a deep breath and tries to hold herself together, so desperately. It really only is Cosima's grip within hers that keeps her from falling too far into her grief. That keeps the realization that these will be the last words that Cosima will ever hear at bay.

“ But all that's dead and gone,” she continues, the melody wavering and breaking to the point where she's not really singing anymore, just whispering the words as she's bent over Cosima's prone form, her forehead resting against Cosima's temple. She's going to finish the song though. She  _ needs  _ to finish it. “And passed-”

Cosima's eyes fly open then, the hand that's clasped in Sarah's scrabbling over to the nightstand to find a tissue as her chest heaves. Her reflexes dulled because of the illness, Cosima's unable to turn her face into the Kleenex in time and spittle tinged red splatters against Sarah's jaw and throat.

“Cosima, please... you need to breathe,” Sarah begs her, reaching to reclaim the hand that is pressed against taught lips, stuffed with balled up bloody tissues that poke between shaking fingers. There's no panic within her now; she hasn't been panicked for the past few weeks as Cosima's coughing fits grew more and more common. And more violent.

Cosima looks over at her, eyes still alert which means that she's heard Sarah's instructions. But her body is not obeying. “Breathe love,” Sarah whispers again, her pleas more frantic now as her forehead drops again to Cosima's temple. Panic, she hasn't felt that in awhile. And she still doesn't feel it. Fear though... that's a whole other beast.

She gasps then, a great heaving of her chest as Sarah snaps her head up to look, her heart beating once more. “Still here,” Cosima manages. Barely. “Hasn't got me yet.”

“Cos...,” Sarah's voice is broken and the tears she's been fighting since she started singing start to fall. She swore she wouldn't cry, but those terrifying moments only serve to remind them both of the inevitable. Unable to hold back the emotion, she buries her head in the space between Cosima's head and her shoulder, her own shoulders shaking from her terror.

“Finish it please?” she asks as Sarah breaks completely, her tears overcoming her breathing, salt and water mingling with the blood at her jawline. “Sarah...,” Cosima murmurs, squeezing their hands together as tight as her weakened muscles will allow. She must be weaker than she thought, because Sarah doesn't seem to even notice her grip. “Please Sarah... keep singing.”

After several moments, in which any of them could have been Cosima's last, Sarah finally pulls in a steadying breath of air and opens her eyes, raising her head once more to gaze into Cosima's eyes. “Promise me you'll still remember?” she asks, her voice even more strained now due to her sobbing.

“Promise,” Cosima smiles and takes in one last image of Sarah hovering over her before closing her eyes and listening to Sarah's voice until she can't hear anymore.

“Just close your eyes,” Sarah valiantly continues on, remembering the days when Cosima had refused to sleep on account of there being too much research to do. Back when they both still had the delusion of hope for a cure. “The sun is goin' down... an' you'll be alright, no one can hurt you now,” she murmurs as she watches Cosima's chest rise one last time. A single puff of air escapes past her chapped lips and her pulse sags, betrayed in its task of pumping blood.

And Sarah  just  _ knows  _ then. Without having to feel the veins at her neck, she knows. But she had promised that she'd finish. Whispering as not to startle her awake,  _ though she wants to her wake up, please, just open your eyes,  _ Sarah forces herself to at least finish the chorus. “Come morning... light,”  _ she's so broken, she's so lost, it all hurts, it's too much  _ But Cosima had asked her. She had. Had made her promise. So she tries her best. “You and I'll be... safe.. and sound.” And then it's too much, because Cosima's gone and the music's gone and everything's just... gone.


End file.
